Campaign Portraits

[Mislagnissa]

Zeratul said the Overmind came to Aiur to finish the Xel'Naga's experiments. Nothing was said about surpassing it all. And the Overmind said nothing about creating the ultimate lifeform. It merely thought that this would make the swarm perfect. Makes you really wonder did it actually know what would REALLY happen if it had won on Aiur...

The Xel'naga did finish their experiments: they proclaimed that the Protoss were failures and that the Zerg were the ultimate lifeform. This is because in the SC1 manual, purity of form and essence were arbitrary concepts intended to separately create the ultimate lifeform; when purity of form failed, the xel'naga decided to explore purity of essence instead. After eating the xel'naga, the Overmind turned purity of form and essence into complementary religious mumbo jumbo that had no basis in the xel'naga's own beliefs.

The Overmind is not completing anything other than its own religious beliefs. It's supposed to be inspired by the speech of the Old Testament god, with the cerebrates as its prophets. The Zerg are so advanced that science and religion have become indistinguishable to them.

I get where you're coming from but it's a little bit unfair to hold them accountable for not being so thorough in their speculative biology, when it's really not their focus or the purview of the game, nor should they be expected to be some expert on the subject. If one should take issue about this aspect, one should also question why Protoss are even humanoid in the first place, how they are arbitrarily deemed as pure of form/the pinnacle of a physical specimen and how their psionics are even feasible.

You have to keep in mind that we are talking about a fictional alien species. Their biology doesn't have to work the same or be within the same limits as what we have here on Earth. This also includes them having similarities to our known concepts in biology but not being exactly the same, too. In other words, it's all "space magic" really.

When writing military science fiction, and not epic space fantasy, it's better to be "not even wrong" over just plain wrong. I take most issue with the photosynthesis since it generates mass from nowhere and every other instance shows the Protoss mining for resources to manufacture their structures and power their warp gates (and presumably power food replicators too). I can rationalize the rest: for example, if they have three hearts, why not six or seven lungs? Their psi matrix works exactly like Tesla's wireless power transfer, which is only practical in a communist utopia like Aiur.

You're right in that Blizzard made them too human in appearance and this is detrimental to their portrayal. They have basically human skulls sans most identifying features, which makes them expressionless and boring. Their are so many other ways their anatomy could have been structured while remaining roughly humanoid without being human or soulless. The SC1 victory screen had freakishly long fingers, for example. The skull could have been structured more like, I don't know, the alien in the short film "R'ha." There are numerous examples of more interesting mouthless alien designs on Deviantart.

[drakolobo]

In fact they handle several skin tones in starcraft 2 the high templarios for example are beige, blue skin, purple, albina the only color I have not seen is the turquoise green of the original zealots, the colors were reused, only now not Are so scalable, they became more subtle in the remastered and starcraft 2. It is even suggested that the color is indicative of the color of the tribe or faction and I come to think that the gray color that you have so bored is that of the main tribe of the Templar caste: Akilae the caste that we see fighting mainly .




As for the texture of the skin I have no peculiar attachment to the excessive rhomboid wrinkles are fine but they are not as necessary
*

In the end I worry more that it seems that they forgot that artanis must have the largest neural appendices, I rationalized it thinking that the short size was indicative of his youth, but in starcraft 2 and have recognized that it is a mistake, are long So I hope you do not forget it and repeat the same as they recognized in a past interview

[ragnarok]

The Xel'naga did finish their experiments: they proclaimed that the Protoss were failures and that the Zerg were the ultimate lifeform. This is because in the SC1 manual, purity of form and essence were arbitrary concepts intended to separately create the ultimate lifeform; when purity of form failed, the xel'naga decided to explore purity of essence instead. After eating the xel'naga, the Overmind turned purity of form and essence into complementary religious mumbo jumbo that had no basis in the xel'naga's own beliefs.

The Overmind is not completing anything other than its own religious beliefs. It's supposed to be inspired by the speech of the Old Testament god, with the cerebrates as its prophets. The Zerg are so advanced that science and religion have become indistinguishable to them.

Personally I dislike a villain who sees it as his divine right to conquer everything. If that's the case then Blizzard merely ripped this off the white man's thinking centuries ago, where they hammered it into the Bible that it was their destiny to rule the world.

I never like bringing in religious crap into a sci-fi storyline. The prophecy certainly didn't help out too much, though I know many would have accepted it if Blizzard had outright told them (before even WoL was out) that SC2 was more towards sci-fantasy.

[Gradius]

I get where you're coming from but it's a little bit unfair to hold them accountable for not being so thorough in their speculative biology, when it's really not their focus or the purview of the game, nor should they be expected to be some expert on the subject.

Plus when you've got FTL and psionics you can't really afford to be picky about protoss biology. Going into FTL requires harnessing unfathomable amounts of energies from anti-matter that simply doesn't exist in large enough quantities in our universe. A dropship that can go into FTL should be able to blow up a sun and/or the solar system.

And I'm pretty sure the biology of the entire zerg race is bullshit. Being able to sequence DNA (or whatever genetic material the alien uses) doesn't mean you know dick about how it works and that you can just insert the parts you like into your own genome. It's like knowing the letters of the alphabet to a language but not knowing the language itself.

[Visions of Khas]

Going into FTL requires harnessing unfathomable amounts of energies from anti-matter that simply doesn't exist in large enough quantities in our universe.

I addressed this in my Battlecruiser cutaway, but researchers are currently doing work on a warp field interferometer. Some current theories suggest a high-K capacitor need only be shaped in a torus to bring power requirements to a manageable level; while the fuel capacity was previously in the Jovian range, it's now much more realistic. Research is ongoing.

And I'm pretty sure the biology of the entire zerg race is bullshit.

Nope, that's a thing, too. Animals on earth do this. Hell, we use it in medicine.

Science, y'all. It's beautiful.

[Gradius]

I addressed this in my Battlecruiser cutaway, but researchers are currently doing work on a warp field interferometer. Some current theories suggest a high-K capacitor need only be shaped in a torus to bring power requirements to a manageable level; while the fuel capacity was previously in the Jovian range, it's now much more realistic. Research is ongoing.

I thought their experiment wasn't sensitive enough to show that a space time warp had occurred, and even if it did, this isn't even a proof of concept that you can use this for FTL. It's not like NASA is researching FTL (even though they should). And I'm pretty sure you'd still need exotic matter to get it to work, which we can only produce in insanely small quantities.

That battlecruiser cutout is sick. I know you gotta take liberties because it's StarCraft, but doesn't the torus on the FTL drive have to be around the whole ship though?

Nope, that's a thing, too. Animals on earth do this. Hell, we use it in medicine.

This exists because organisms on Earth have a common ancestor. That's why human DNA is 80% identical to a cow. This isn't going to happen on alien planets. What if the alien proteins are opposite handed? What if their DNA doesn't encode proteins? What if they don't use DNA as genetic material? What if they're silicon based lifeforms? It's not going to be impossible for zerg to figure out how it works after study, sure, but it is going to be impossible for them to just swap it in like organisms here on Earth can. And the primal zerg sucking blue energy out of their victims and stealing their DNA on the spot? Hell no.

[Visions of Khas]

What if the alien proteins are opposite handed? What if their DNA doesn't encode proteins?

See, this is why I loved Mass Effect, it actually dealt with chirality and nutritional requirements for the different species. You're right in that other life forms would likely use DNA analogs that are incompatible with our own; my links were simply assuming the protoss and zerg were also terrestrial carbon-bsaed life forms -- which, in all reality, they wouldn't be. (Unless you want to spin the tinfoil theory that, since humanity is a product of the same cycle, then the protoss and zerg would have similar biological foundations. And no, I don't agree with that theory.)

And I'm pretty sure you'd still need exotic matter to get it to work, which we can only produce in insanely small quantities.

Well, we are trying to harness the casimir effect with metamaterials and microchips, so that kinda counts, right?

I thought their experiment wasn't sensitive enough to show that a space time warp had occurred, and even if it did, this isn't even a proof of concept that you can use this for FTL.

Hey man. If we even detect a change equivalent to one part in a billion, then it's all a matter of engineering after that.

[Turalyon]

When writing military science fiction, and not epic space fantasy, it's better to be "not even wrong" over just plain wrong.

Eh, "military science fiction" does not necessarily imply a degree of hardness to its sci-fi. Afterall, Star Wars can be described as "military science fiction", too...

I take most issue with the photosynthesis since it generates mass from nowhere and every other instance shows the Protoss mining for resources to manufacture their structures and power their warp gates (and presumably power food replicators too). I can rationalize the rest: for example, if they have three hearts, why not six or seven lungs? Their psi matrix works exactly like Tesla's wireless power transfer, which is only practical in a communist utopia like Aiur.

I dunno. If I were, like you, to take the same issue with them using photosynthesis, I would also be compelled to take issue behind the biological basis of their psionic power as well - you know, the more overt and important trait the Protoss possess. And yet, you don't. What makes you rationalise their psionics but not that that they could be using some form/equivalence of photosynthesis as a means of energy production? It could be that the process is described as photosynthesis to make it easier to understand but it could be a process that has no comparison to what we have on Earth.

You're right in that Blizzard made them too human in appearance and this is detrimental to their portrayal.

Well, we can chalk that up to writers having no sense of what it is to be truly alien. It's hard to write some thing truly alien since people can only write things they know about or are relatable in some way - mainly things that are reflections of other humans or themselves. The Overmind was the closest thing Sc ever got to when it came to true alienness.

[drakolobo]

More datamining listed here: https://glasscannon.ru/2017/07/starc...zhej-kampanii/

IIRC mappers were able to override portraits in the original starcraft with custom ones. Why not do the same for remastered if Blizz doesn't come through? Call it "protoss of color portraits pack" or something and make up some spiel about political correctness to advertise it.

A bigger problem with the Protoss is that they have huge chins which serve no biological or aesthetic function besides shorthand for "alien." They don't have any gills, muscles or other tissues to move like human or zerg portraits do. The dark templar cover their faces, which makes them stand out but also raises the question of why they cover their faces if their faces don't move in the first place? The SC1 models at least wiggled their faces a tiny bit considering the low res.

The only reason why various obscure sources claim the Protoss don't eat or breath, survive in space unprotected, and are photosynthetic, among other things, is because they don't have obvious mouths. However, the original manual stated that they evolved from apex predators that hunted in packs. It makes no sense that they wouldn't need to eat or breath, since even plants die in vacuum because they respire carbon dioxide and the only reason plants would evolve the means to hunt is if they were carnivorous and would thus cease being plants. The implication was always that Protoss had mouths in a different place and still needed to breath (they probably have invisible spacesuits or something, since they already have robots and teleportation).

Blizzard isn't even consistent with their space magic explanations. SC2 gives Zeratul gratuitous nipples, which the Artanis/Dark Templar BW model lacked, and implies female Protoss have breasts. At one point a FAQ claimed that Zerg don't literally breathe in space, they just evolved biological spacesuits to store oxygen and don't have this adaptation unless they are expected to go into space.

but zerg fight in plataforms, these adaptation can be common

[Visions of Khas]

but zerg fight in plataforms, these adaptation can be common

When asked how Banshees can fly on platform maps, some Blizzard rep stated that platforms have self-contained atmospheres and gravity generators.

It's not an answer I like, but, there it is.